This is the heading over a long post on Caustic Logic's blog The Lockerbie Divide. The post consists of a thoughtful discussion of Father Pat Keegans's recent letter to US Lockerbie families and of the reaction quoted in the original report in The Herald from one US relative, to the effect that an inquiry into the safety of the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi would "open old wounds".
The questions that Caustic Logic poses to the US relatives are questions that can equally be addressed to the Scottish Government which, notwithstanding the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, continues to parrot the mantra that it does "not doubt the safety of the verdict against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Keegans. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Keegans. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday 28 November 2010
Saturday 29 December 2018
There are good reasons to believe that the conviction of Megrahi was a shameful miscarriage of justice
[What follows is excerpted from an article by Kim Sengupta published today on the website of the Belfast Telegraph (and a week ago behind a paywall on the website of The Independent):]
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi lay in his bed attached to a drip, on red sheets stained by dark splashes of blood he had coughed up. An oxygen mask covered his skeletal face; his body twitched as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was in the advanced stages of cancer: medicine he desperately needed had been plundered by looters; the doctors who had been treating him had fled.
This was in Tripoli in the winter of 2011, in the turmoil of Libya's civil war and the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. It was a time of great violence. A dozen bodies were piled up beside a roundabout a half-mile from where I had seen Megrahi lie slowly dying. They were corpses of black men, lynched by the rebels because they were supposedly mercenaries fighting for the regime. In reality, they were victims of a xenophobia against African migrants which had accompanied the uprising.
Megrahi himself had been convicted of a dreadful massacre; of being responsible for 270 deaths on December 21, 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland. A bomb - 12 ounces of Semtex in a Toshiba radio-cassette player - had been secreted in the luggage of the plane carrying passengers to the US, many returning home for Christmas.
After spending eight years in Scottish prisons following his conviction, Megrahi had been returned to Libya on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. After a few months in prison in Tripoli, unable to walk and bedridden, he was allowed to return to his family home.
There was vengeful anger expressed by some in Britain, and more so in the US, at Megrahi's return to Libya. He had faked his illness, it was claimed, and even if that was not the case, he had escaped justice by not actually dying in a cell.
The charge of subterfuge was reinforced by the perception that his release was part of the many dodgy deals between Tony Blair's government and Colonel Gaddafi's regime.
Yet there are good reasons to believe that the conviction of Megrahi was a shameful miscarriage of justice and that, as a result, the real perpetrators of one of the worst acts of terrorism in recent history remained free. That certainly was the view of many, including international jurists, intelligence officers, journalists who followed the case, and members of bereaved families.
Among the latter group was Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing. Dr Swire, a man of integrity and compassion, who became a spokesman for UK Families 103, stressed that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was even convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted to see is that the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice".
Megrahi died in May 2012, a few months after I had seen him. Yet a campaign Dr Swire had helped set up, Justice for Megrahi, continues to help the Libyan's family to seek a new appeal against the sentence in their efforts to posthumously clear his name.
Certainly, the chronology of the original investigation into the bombing is strange, raising serious questions about the official narrative.
Soon after the downing of the Pan Am flight, American and British security officials began laying the blame on an Iran-Syria axis. The suggested scenario was that Tehran had taken out a contract in revenge for the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655), which had been shot down by missiles fired from an American warship (the USS Vincennes) a few months earlier.
The theory went that the contract had been taken up by the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command), which specialised in such operations.
The blame switched to Libya - which was then very much a pariah state - around the time Iran and Syria joined the US-led coalition against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf war.
Robert Baer, the former American intelligence officer and author, was among those who held that an Iranian-sponsored hit was the only plausible explanation for the attack. This was the firm belief held "to a man", he stated, by his former colleagues in the CIA.
After years of wrangling, Megrahi, the former head of security at Libyan Airlines and allegedly a Libyan intelligence officer, was finally extradited in 1999 - along with another man named as a suspect over the bombing, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, also allegedly employed by Libyan intelligence. (...)
I covered their trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, which took place in a specially constituted court, with a panel of Scottish judges but without a jury, under Scots law. The two men were effectively charged with joint enterprise - conspiracy - yet only Megrahi was found guilty. (...)
The prosecution evidence was circumstantial, details of the bomb timer on the plane were contradictory, and the testimony of a key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper, was extremely shaky under cross-examination.
Five years on from the trial, the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmville, who had been responsible for initiating the Lockerbie prosecution, famously described the witness, Tony Gauci, as "an apple short of a picnic" and "not quite the full shilling".
The performance and evidence of a supposedly prime CIA intelligence asset, Abdul Majid Giaka, codenamed Puzzle Piece, who turned up in a Shirley Bassey wig, was widely viewed as risible. It emerged later that important evidence had not been passed on to the defence lawyers. Ulrich Lumpert, an engineer who testified to the validity of a key piece of evidence, admitted later in an affidavit of lying to the court.
The observer for the UN at the trial severely criticised the verdict, as did many lawyers. Robert Black, a law professor born in Lockerbie, who played an important role in organising the Camp Zeist proceedings, later became convinced that a great injustice had taken place. (...)
Fr Patrick Keegans had just been appointed as parish priest in Lockerbie and was looking forward to his first Christmas there at the time of the crash. His tireless work with the traumatised community drew wide praise and is remembered with gratitude.
He reflected: "For those of us who experienced Lockerbie, the story will never come to an end. Lockerbie lives with us, we are part of Lockerbie and Lockerbie is part of us... the horror, the tragedy, the sadness, the grief, the support and the love that was shown - all of that stays with us."
Fr Keegans, who is now retired, joined the Justice for Megrahi campaign after meeting the convicted man's family and is now backing the call for a fresh appeal.
"I can't live with myself being silent," he explained, "when I'm truly convinced that this man has been unjustly convicted. Lockerbie is an unfinished story as far as the legal aspects are concerned."
Megrahi died at his home in Tripoli, still protesting his innocence. He thanked Dr Jim Swire and others who had believed in him.
In his final days, he said: "I pray for all those who died every day. I shall be meeting my God soon, but the truth will come out.
"I really hope the truth of what really happened will come out one day."
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi lay in his bed attached to a drip, on red sheets stained by dark splashes of blood he had coughed up. An oxygen mask covered his skeletal face; his body twitched as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was in the advanced stages of cancer: medicine he desperately needed had been plundered by looters; the doctors who had been treating him had fled.
This was in Tripoli in the winter of 2011, in the turmoil of Libya's civil war and the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. It was a time of great violence. A dozen bodies were piled up beside a roundabout a half-mile from where I had seen Megrahi lie slowly dying. They were corpses of black men, lynched by the rebels because they were supposedly mercenaries fighting for the regime. In reality, they were victims of a xenophobia against African migrants which had accompanied the uprising.
Megrahi himself had been convicted of a dreadful massacre; of being responsible for 270 deaths on December 21, 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland. A bomb - 12 ounces of Semtex in a Toshiba radio-cassette player - had been secreted in the luggage of the plane carrying passengers to the US, many returning home for Christmas.
After spending eight years in Scottish prisons following his conviction, Megrahi had been returned to Libya on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. After a few months in prison in Tripoli, unable to walk and bedridden, he was allowed to return to his family home.
There was vengeful anger expressed by some in Britain, and more so in the US, at Megrahi's return to Libya. He had faked his illness, it was claimed, and even if that was not the case, he had escaped justice by not actually dying in a cell.
The charge of subterfuge was reinforced by the perception that his release was part of the many dodgy deals between Tony Blair's government and Colonel Gaddafi's regime.
Yet there are good reasons to believe that the conviction of Megrahi was a shameful miscarriage of justice and that, as a result, the real perpetrators of one of the worst acts of terrorism in recent history remained free. That certainly was the view of many, including international jurists, intelligence officers, journalists who followed the case, and members of bereaved families.
Among the latter group was Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing. Dr Swire, a man of integrity and compassion, who became a spokesman for UK Families 103, stressed that "the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was even convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted to see is that the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice".
Megrahi died in May 2012, a few months after I had seen him. Yet a campaign Dr Swire had helped set up, Justice for Megrahi, continues to help the Libyan's family to seek a new appeal against the sentence in their efforts to posthumously clear his name.
Certainly, the chronology of the original investigation into the bombing is strange, raising serious questions about the official narrative.
Soon after the downing of the Pan Am flight, American and British security officials began laying the blame on an Iran-Syria axis. The suggested scenario was that Tehran had taken out a contract in revenge for the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655), which had been shot down by missiles fired from an American warship (the USS Vincennes) a few months earlier.
The theory went that the contract had been taken up by the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command), which specialised in such operations.
The blame switched to Libya - which was then very much a pariah state - around the time Iran and Syria joined the US-led coalition against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf war.
Robert Baer, the former American intelligence officer and author, was among those who held that an Iranian-sponsored hit was the only plausible explanation for the attack. This was the firm belief held "to a man", he stated, by his former colleagues in the CIA.
After years of wrangling, Megrahi, the former head of security at Libyan Airlines and allegedly a Libyan intelligence officer, was finally extradited in 1999 - along with another man named as a suspect over the bombing, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, also allegedly employed by Libyan intelligence. (...)
I covered their trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, which took place in a specially constituted court, with a panel of Scottish judges but without a jury, under Scots law. The two men were effectively charged with joint enterprise - conspiracy - yet only Megrahi was found guilty. (...)
The prosecution evidence was circumstantial, details of the bomb timer on the plane were contradictory, and the testimony of a key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper, was extremely shaky under cross-examination.
Five years on from the trial, the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmville, who had been responsible for initiating the Lockerbie prosecution, famously described the witness, Tony Gauci, as "an apple short of a picnic" and "not quite the full shilling".
The performance and evidence of a supposedly prime CIA intelligence asset, Abdul Majid Giaka, codenamed Puzzle Piece, who turned up in a Shirley Bassey wig, was widely viewed as risible. It emerged later that important evidence had not been passed on to the defence lawyers. Ulrich Lumpert, an engineer who testified to the validity of a key piece of evidence, admitted later in an affidavit of lying to the court.
The observer for the UN at the trial severely criticised the verdict, as did many lawyers. Robert Black, a law professor born in Lockerbie, who played an important role in organising the Camp Zeist proceedings, later became convinced that a great injustice had taken place. (...)
Fr Patrick Keegans had just been appointed as parish priest in Lockerbie and was looking forward to his first Christmas there at the time of the crash. His tireless work with the traumatised community drew wide praise and is remembered with gratitude.
He reflected: "For those of us who experienced Lockerbie, the story will never come to an end. Lockerbie lives with us, we are part of Lockerbie and Lockerbie is part of us... the horror, the tragedy, the sadness, the grief, the support and the love that was shown - all of that stays with us."
Fr Keegans, who is now retired, joined the Justice for Megrahi campaign after meeting the convicted man's family and is now backing the call for a fresh appeal.
"I can't live with myself being silent," he explained, "when I'm truly convinced that this man has been unjustly convicted. Lockerbie is an unfinished story as far as the legal aspects are concerned."
Megrahi died at his home in Tripoli, still protesting his innocence. He thanked Dr Jim Swire and others who had believed in him.
In his final days, he said: "I pray for all those who died every day. I shall be meeting my God soon, but the truth will come out.
"I really hope the truth of what really happened will come out one day."
Friday 7 February 2014
A missive from Frank Duggan
[What follows is the text of an email sent yesterday by Frank Duggan to me, Jim Swire, Father Pat Keegans and lots of others. I reproduce it here to illustrate, if further illustration were necessary, what a delightful human being Mr Duggan is:]
This monster [Gaddafi] was aided and abetted for the last quarter century by the likes of Prof Black and his always wrong legal experts; a sensationalist and disgraceful media, including news outlets (Scottish Herald, The Scotsman, and comical tabloids); media producers from BBC and others; shameless UK politicians like that dingbat Christine Grahame; book and movie promoters (the latest being John Ashton and Morag Kerr); the businessmen and diplomats who assisted Gaddafi's successful effort to have Megrahi released from the Scottish prison; and more. Added to this incomplete list should be the UK family member, a supporter of Gaddafi from the very beginning, who sat with the Libyans during legal proceedings, went to Libya to hug Gaddafi, the man who murdered his daughter, and who called the detestable little murderer Megrahi "my friend" and a "gentle Muslim".
No one can take any pleasure reading these revelations about Gaddafi, but at least the thousands of investigators, police, prosecutors and law enforcement professionals who worked on the Lockerbie bombing can take some pride in not being persuaded by the many shills supporting Gaddafi. The Scottish justice system and the Crown Office is still being slandered, amazingly, in the UK press, even as they are seeking further proof in Libya. A handful of journalists, most recently Magnus Linklater, are derided when they report on the Libya supporters, who are more interested in publicity than justice.
When Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, in cooperation with the new Libyan investigators, find more evidence, as they will, the enablers will do little to change their execrable promotion of Megrahi and his Libyan government sponsors.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts/television/9130692/why-the-west-let-gaddafi-get-away-with-murder/
[Posted from Swakopmund, Namibia.]
This monster [Gaddafi] was aided and abetted for the last quarter century by the likes of Prof Black and his always wrong legal experts; a sensationalist and disgraceful media, including news outlets (Scottish Herald, The Scotsman, and comical tabloids); media producers from BBC and others; shameless UK politicians like that dingbat Christine Grahame; book and movie promoters (the latest being John Ashton and Morag Kerr); the businessmen and diplomats who assisted Gaddafi's successful effort to have Megrahi released from the Scottish prison; and more. Added to this incomplete list should be the UK family member, a supporter of Gaddafi from the very beginning, who sat with the Libyans during legal proceedings, went to Libya to hug Gaddafi, the man who murdered his daughter, and who called the detestable little murderer Megrahi "my friend" and a "gentle Muslim".
No one can take any pleasure reading these revelations about Gaddafi, but at least the thousands of investigators, police, prosecutors and law enforcement professionals who worked on the Lockerbie bombing can take some pride in not being persuaded by the many shills supporting Gaddafi. The Scottish justice system and the Crown Office is still being slandered, amazingly, in the UK press, even as they are seeking further proof in Libya. A handful of journalists, most recently Magnus Linklater, are derided when they report on the Libya supporters, who are more interested in publicity than justice.
When Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, in cooperation with the new Libyan investigators, find more evidence, as they will, the enablers will do little to change their execrable promotion of Megrahi and his Libyan government sponsors.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts/television/9130692/why-the-west-let-gaddafi-get-away-with-murder/
[Posted from Swakopmund, Namibia.]
Tuesday 12 September 2017
UN urged to investigate Lockerbie
[This is the headline over a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2009. It reads as follows:]
The UN General Assembly is being urged to hold an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing, it has emerged.
Campaigners say they are optimistic the UN will put in place a commission to investigate the 1988 atrocity which resulted in the deaths of 270 people.
An appeal by Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi against his conviction for the bombing has been dropped, raising fears the whole truth of the case could be lost.
Hans Koechler, the UN observer at the original trial, backs the campaign.
Professor Robert Black, one of the original architects of the trial at Camp Zeist, is also supporting the campaign.
He said: "It's about trying to get an inquiry of some description into Lockerbie.
"Now that al-Megrahi has been released, that method of trying to secure some truth through an appeal has vanished and this is about trying to look at other methods."
Megrahi - who is the only person convicted over the bombing - is dying from cancer and was released from jail on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government last month.
He had been pursuing an appeal against conviction which campaigners hoped would have shed new light on the case, but he dropped this just before his release.
Prof Black said: "The original trial was set up through the UN and that's the reason that many countries other than UK co-operated.
"The obvious thing to do would be to ask the security council of the UN to hold an inquiry, but in realistic terms that's not going to happen, because the UK and US have vetoes and don't want it.
"They don't have vetoes on the General Assembly."
It comes as Libya prepares to take over the presidency of the Assembly later this month.
Prof Black said the move is being driven by the Justice for Megrahi campaign, but that it has the backing of Hans Koechler, the UN observer at the original trial, and Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy.
Father Patrick Keegans, the priest in Lockerbie at the time of the bombing, has also backed the move.
Asked about the chances of success, Prof Black added: "I think it's pretty good.
"There are a lot of countries that don't think we've seen the truth and would like to see that uncovered."
According to The Herald newspaper, Prof Hans Koechler, of the University of Innsbruck, said the General Assembly had set up such a commission in 1968 to look at Gaza.
He told the paper: "As the General Assembly is a deliberative body it has only moral authority and no coercive powers.
"It could however raise international awareness of the different issues involved and name and shame certain countries enough to ensure they do something about it. It could pressure Britain into holding an inquiry."
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who made the decision to free Megrahi, has said he would support a UK inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing, while Westminster has consistently refused.
Thursday 13 August 2009
I was at Lockerbie: I rejoice that Megrahi is going home
[This is the headline over an article in The Herald by Canon Patrick Keegans who was parish priest in Lockerbie when Pan Am 103 fell on the town and killed eleven of his neighbours and friends in Sherwood Crescent. The following are the last six paragraphs.]
As far as we know, next week Mr Megrahi, to the relief of his wife and family, will be going home. I am rejoicing. That is the only word I can use. I would gladly help him on to the plane. I am glad that compassion still walks hand in hand with justice. As a Scot and as one so closely involved with Lockerbie, I would like to be able to thank the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, for what would be a courageous decision.
It is courageous enough to grant release on compassionate grounds but it will take even more courage to allow the appeal to continue. If the appeal is halted, then justice will be denied on several fronts. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi has a right to due legal process, to clear his name. The families of Pan Am 103, if the appeal is halted, will be left with nothing. We will be left in the dark guessing at what would have been the verdict in the appeal.
The families of Pan Am 103, as victims, deserve justice; they deserve to know the truth. My own dark thought is that any decision made by Mr MacAskill will not really be based on compassion but on political expediency. There seems to be a desire to get Mr Megrahi out of the country and to have the appeal halted at all costs. Perhaps the Crown Office and governments fear what might be revealed as the appeal continues.
So, I would urge all the families of Pan Am 103 to do two things: first, to respond with compassion to Mr Megrahi and his family; and, secondly, to remember the motto, "Pan Am 103: the truth must be known". Surely there has to be some mechanism by which the material in the appeal can be brought into the public domain. This is not the end of Lockerbie.
On a personal level, I say to my many friends in America who strongly disagree with my views that the compassion and love you have experienced from me and from the people of Lockerbie will always be there for you.
And, again on a personal level, I would say to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi as he leaves Scottish soil and returns home: "Be at peace now with God and your family."
As far as we know, next week Mr Megrahi, to the relief of his wife and family, will be going home. I am rejoicing. That is the only word I can use. I would gladly help him on to the plane. I am glad that compassion still walks hand in hand with justice. As a Scot and as one so closely involved with Lockerbie, I would like to be able to thank the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, for what would be a courageous decision.
It is courageous enough to grant release on compassionate grounds but it will take even more courage to allow the appeal to continue. If the appeal is halted, then justice will be denied on several fronts. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi has a right to due legal process, to clear his name. The families of Pan Am 103, if the appeal is halted, will be left with nothing. We will be left in the dark guessing at what would have been the verdict in the appeal.
The families of Pan Am 103, as victims, deserve justice; they deserve to know the truth. My own dark thought is that any decision made by Mr MacAskill will not really be based on compassion but on political expediency. There seems to be a desire to get Mr Megrahi out of the country and to have the appeal halted at all costs. Perhaps the Crown Office and governments fear what might be revealed as the appeal continues.
So, I would urge all the families of Pan Am 103 to do two things: first, to respond with compassion to Mr Megrahi and his family; and, secondly, to remember the motto, "Pan Am 103: the truth must be known". Surely there has to be some mechanism by which the material in the appeal can be brought into the public domain. This is not the end of Lockerbie.
On a personal level, I say to my many friends in America who strongly disagree with my views that the compassion and love you have experienced from me and from the people of Lockerbie will always be there for you.
And, again on a personal level, I would say to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi as he leaves Scottish soil and returns home: "Be at peace now with God and your family."
Tuesday 23 November 2010
An inquiry into conviction of Megrahi should go ahead but is unlikely to win support in the US
[This is the heading over a letter by John M Wilson of Houston (presumably the Renfrewshire not the Texas one) in today's edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
The idea that American families will respond favourably to Father Pat Keegans’s letter in support of an inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (“US families urged to back new inquiry into Megrahi conviction”, The Herald, November 22) is as likely as the old adage about turkeys voting for Christmas.
The recent rejection of a review of the case by the Scottish Government will only give support to the theorists that Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Scotland should not be left in a situation similar to that which exists in the US, where theories still abound about who really shot John F Kennedy.
The verdict at Camp Zeist is considered [by the Scottish Government] to be a just one but, despite that, there are people who declare themselves dissatisfied with that. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is critical of the verdict but has no axe to grind other than to highlight what it considers deficiencies in the case which could have resulted in an incorrect verdict. Dr Jim Swire and his many supporters have declared similar views and should at least be granted some form of judicial review. The fact that Megrahi has survived beyond the estimated time following his release adds weight to the demands for a review and has created more suspicion that his release was more to do with politics than justice.
The idea that American families will respond favourably to Father Pat Keegans’s letter in support of an inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (“US families urged to back new inquiry into Megrahi conviction”, The Herald, November 22) is as likely as the old adage about turkeys voting for Christmas.
The recent rejection of a review of the case by the Scottish Government will only give support to the theorists that Megrahi was wrongly convicted. Scotland should not be left in a situation similar to that which exists in the US, where theories still abound about who really shot John F Kennedy.
The verdict at Camp Zeist is considered [by the Scottish Government] to be a just one but, despite that, there are people who declare themselves dissatisfied with that. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is critical of the verdict but has no axe to grind other than to highlight what it considers deficiencies in the case which could have resulted in an incorrect verdict. Dr Jim Swire and his many supporters have declared similar views and should at least be granted some form of judicial review. The fact that Megrahi has survived beyond the estimated time following his release adds weight to the demands for a review and has created more suspicion that his release was more to do with politics than justice.
Friday 28 January 2011
Public Petitions Committee minute on Megrahi petition
[The minute of the meeting of the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee on 25 January contains the following item on the Justice for Megrahi petition:]
PE1370 Petition by Dr Jim Swire, Professor Robert Black QC, Mr Robert Forrester, Father Patrick Keegans and Mr Iain McKie on behalf of ‘Justice for Megrahi’ calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
The Committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service seeking a response to specific points.
[The Hansard report of the committee's deliberations is not due to be published until 31 January.]
PE1370 Petition by Dr Jim Swire, Professor Robert Black QC, Mr Robert Forrester, Father Patrick Keegans and Mr Iain McKie on behalf of ‘Justice for Megrahi’ calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.
The Committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service seeking a response to specific points.
[The Hansard report of the committee's deliberations is not due to be published until 31 January.]
Friday 21 December 2018
Marwan Khreesat's daughter says Iran not Libya was behind bomb
[What follows is excerpted from a report in today's edition of the Daily Mirror:]
Iran paid a Palestinian terror group to carry out the Lockerbie bombing, it is claimed.
Member Marwan Khreesat allegedly told relatives boss Ahmed Jibril led the 1988 plot. Daughter Saha said: “He has a deal with Iran.”
For 17 years Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been blamed for the Lockerbie bombing, despite grave doubts over his involvement.
But the Mirror today reveals fresh claims by the daughter of a former terrorist which she says finally proves Iran was behind the outrage that killed 270 people 30 years ago today.
Jordanian Marwan Khreesat left his wife a dossier of evidence that allegedly shows his boss in a Palestinian terror group, Ahmed Jibril, was paid millions of pound by Tehran to mastermind the horrific attack over the Scottish town.
Khreesat’s 43-year-old daughter Saha claims her father even gave the name of the bombmaker to her mother.
It will add to long-held suspicions that Tehran ordered the atrocity in revenge for the US shooting-down of an Iranian passenger plane months earlier, killing 290 civilians.
Saha insisted Khreesat played no part in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 and blamed Jibril, who was leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
Speaking to us in the middle class suburb of the Jordanian capital Amman, she said: “I think he is responsible, and he has a deal with the Iran government.
“I do have a proof that Ahmed Jibril is responsible for Lockerbie." (...)
Khreesat was identified as a possible Lockerbie suspect shortly after the 1988 attack. He had been arrested two months earlier in Frankfurt with another PFLP-GC member who had plastic explosives hidden in a Toshiba cassette player in his car. The device was very similar to the one used on Flight 103.
Asked if her father knew the name of the bombmaker, Saha replied: “For sure he knows but I don’t know. My dad left something written about this but it’s not in the house.
“If my dad made the bomb he would have taken lots of money but now we don’t have anything because my dad didn’t have anything to do with it.
“Ahmed Jibril took the first million and then he took the rest of the money and got very rich but my dad didn’t take anything." (...)
Asked why her dad did not reveal this information while he was alive, she made reference to the US-led 1986 bombing of Libyan capital Tripoli, in revenge for terror explosions at a West Berlin nightclub.
She said: “Maybe he just wanted to protect Jordan. Maybe he’ll put Jordan in danger if he talked.
“What happened to Libya will happen to Jordan. Lockerbie is an important topic since it is related to America and no one is supposed to mess with America.”
Saha claimed Jordan’s intelligence services were not interested in the truth about Lockerbie. (...)
Scottish MSP Christine Graham said: “These various discoveries that you have made builds further on the case that it was, as many of us believe, Iran that was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and that al-Megrahi was the fall guy. Libya took the rap for various reasons.”
Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the attack, added: “This confirms what we have known for a long time and have never been able to say in public.” Within months of Lockerbie, it was being blamed on the PFLP-GC and Iran by the US and UK. America named Jibril.
Former King Hussein of Jordan said the group was behind the attack in a 1996 letter to John Major. [RB: This is the document in respect of which the UK Government claimed Public Interest Immunity during the appeal by Megrahi that was abandoned when he sought repatriation. The details can be found here.]
Khreesat died two years ago at 70. Jibril, 80, is believed to be in Syria fighting for Bashar al-Assad.
A special mass marking Lockerbie’s 30th anniversary will take place today at Holy Trinity RC Church. Parish priest at the time of the bombing, Canon Pat Keegans, will say he is “not convinced” justice has been done.
Iran paid a Palestinian terror group to carry out the Lockerbie bombing, it is claimed.
Member Marwan Khreesat allegedly told relatives boss Ahmed Jibril led the 1988 plot. Daughter Saha said: “He has a deal with Iran.”
For 17 years Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has been blamed for the Lockerbie bombing, despite grave doubts over his involvement.
But the Mirror today reveals fresh claims by the daughter of a former terrorist which she says finally proves Iran was behind the outrage that killed 270 people 30 years ago today.
Jordanian Marwan Khreesat left his wife a dossier of evidence that allegedly shows his boss in a Palestinian terror group, Ahmed Jibril, was paid millions of pound by Tehran to mastermind the horrific attack over the Scottish town.
Khreesat’s 43-year-old daughter Saha claims her father even gave the name of the bombmaker to her mother.
It will add to long-held suspicions that Tehran ordered the atrocity in revenge for the US shooting-down of an Iranian passenger plane months earlier, killing 290 civilians.
Saha insisted Khreesat played no part in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 and blamed Jibril, who was leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
Speaking to us in the middle class suburb of the Jordanian capital Amman, she said: “I think he is responsible, and he has a deal with the Iran government.
“I do have a proof that Ahmed Jibril is responsible for Lockerbie." (...)
Khreesat was identified as a possible Lockerbie suspect shortly after the 1988 attack. He had been arrested two months earlier in Frankfurt with another PFLP-GC member who had plastic explosives hidden in a Toshiba cassette player in his car. The device was very similar to the one used on Flight 103.
Asked if her father knew the name of the bombmaker, Saha replied: “For sure he knows but I don’t know. My dad left something written about this but it’s not in the house.
“If my dad made the bomb he would have taken lots of money but now we don’t have anything because my dad didn’t have anything to do with it.
“Ahmed Jibril took the first million and then he took the rest of the money and got very rich but my dad didn’t take anything." (...)
Asked why her dad did not reveal this information while he was alive, she made reference to the US-led 1986 bombing of Libyan capital Tripoli, in revenge for terror explosions at a West Berlin nightclub.
She said: “Maybe he just wanted to protect Jordan. Maybe he’ll put Jordan in danger if he talked.
“What happened to Libya will happen to Jordan. Lockerbie is an important topic since it is related to America and no one is supposed to mess with America.”
Saha claimed Jordan’s intelligence services were not interested in the truth about Lockerbie. (...)
Scottish MSP Christine Graham said: “These various discoveries that you have made builds further on the case that it was, as many of us believe, Iran that was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and that al-Megrahi was the fall guy. Libya took the rap for various reasons.”
Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the attack, added: “This confirms what we have known for a long time and have never been able to say in public.” Within months of Lockerbie, it was being blamed on the PFLP-GC and Iran by the US and UK. America named Jibril.
Former King Hussein of Jordan said the group was behind the attack in a 1996 letter to John Major. [RB: This is the document in respect of which the UK Government claimed Public Interest Immunity during the appeal by Megrahi that was abandoned when he sought repatriation. The details can be found here.]
Khreesat died two years ago at 70. Jibril, 80, is believed to be in Syria fighting for Bashar al-Assad.
A special mass marking Lockerbie’s 30th anniversary will take place today at Holy Trinity RC Church. Parish priest at the time of the bombing, Canon Pat Keegans, will say he is “not convinced” justice has been done.
Tuesday 13 December 2016
Media reports of launch of Justice for Megrahi campaign
The Scottish "heavy" daily newspapers have good coverage of yesterday's launch of the Justice for Megrahi campaign.
The Scotsman concentrates on the experiences of the parish priest of Lockerbie at the time of the disaster, Father Pat Keegans. The report reads in part:
'Father Patrick Keegan, 62, said he believed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, was innocent and should be freed on compassionate grounds before an appeal against his conviction.
'"I wrote to Mr Megrahi offering him my support, telling him that I was convinced he was innocent, and that I would willingly offer support to him and his family," said Fr Keegan, who was living in Lockerbie at the time of the bombing, just yards from where a wing section of the Pan Am flight crashed in 1988.
'Describing the Libyan and his family as "victims" of the bombing, Fr Keegan said he believed there had been a mellowing of opinion, even among those previously convinced of his guilt.'
The comments from members of the public that follow the story are also well worth reading.
Lucy Adams in The Herald has an article headed "Priest claims police interference in aftermath of Lockerbie bomb". It reads in part:
'As the Justice For Megrahi campaign was launched yesterday, Father Patrick Keegan, the priest in Lockerbie at the time, revealed that he had been visited by police during the inquiry and asked to keep to the official line - that Libya was responsible. (...)
'"I really became convinced of his innocence when the whole thrust of the case shifted from Syria and Iran to Libya alone. Interference in my own life by the investigation team convinced me.
'"A police officer asked to come along and speak to me. I listened to him for quite a while and then I said: Have you come here to ask me to be silent? He said that the point was that when you speak people listen and we would appreciate it if you could follow our line of Libya alone.
'"I complained to the Lord Advocate about it at the time and got a very bland response. The very fact that they interfered and took the trouble to come to talk to me made up my mind that I was on the right track. Other people had similar experiences."' (...)
The Press and Journal has a good account by Joe Quinn. The BBC News website's report of the launch can be read here.
[RB: Eight years later, the Justice for Megrahi campaign is still alive and kicking.]
Wednesday 23 August 2017
People in authority who are relying on Lockerbie fatigue
[What follows is the text of an article by Christine Grahame MSP headlined Al-Megrahi is home. And he is innocent that was published in The Independent on this date in 2009:]
I became involved with Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi quite by accident. Like many people I had been suffering from Lockerbie fatigue. For me, and for you, I suppose, life had moved on from that horrendous crime over 20 years ago and the imprisonment of the Libyan murderer. That was that.
At least it was, until I agreed, by chance, to sponsor the showing of a Dutch documentary about the Lockerbie bombing at Parliament. I invited all MSPs and researchers, and indeed the press corps, to see this film. One MSP and one member of the press came, and I really only saw it because I felt obliged to attend. But that film changed my perspective. From that casual moment, and from much that I have learned since, I am convinced not only that Megrahi was not found guilty "beyond reasonable doubt", the test in Scots law, but that he is an innocent man.
He is not a saint, of course – he had a history with Libyan intelligence – but his hands are clean over Lockerbie. For you should recall that five months before the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on that dark, wild December night just before Christmas in 1988, an American military cruiser, the Vincennes, shot down an Iranian passenger plane carrying 290 pilgrims. No one has been charged, let alone prosecuted, over that, even though it was all captured on film.
It is reasonable to deduce that when an American plane carrying, as some believed, military personnel back home to their religious festival, is blasted out of the sky, the finger of suspicion should not point first at Libya. Iran, maybe. However, Iran had to be kept on side because of the Iraq/Kuwait conflict. The Iran/Syria connection was soon dropped, and so Libya was indeed blamed. Here was a credible culprit.
To successfully frame a nation, pick one like Libya, in which all the baddies of the Middle East are personified in a recognisable hate figure like Gadhafi. If you want to frame a man, pick one with a feasible track record. Then first sell it to the world through the press and, hey presto!
But back to that film, which has not yet been seen here. After watching this disconcerting documentary, which challenged the reliability of key evidence, I got into conversations that night with Dr Jim Swire, with a forensic police scientist who had to label those bodies scattered across hundreds of acres of dark wintry hillside, with Father Patrick Keegans, the priest who lived in Sherwood Crescent (the only person who survived in that street) and with others. None of them supported the case against al-Megrahi.
Since then I have met the man at the centre of it all on several occasions. Our first meeting took place on a blustery morning some months ago. Afterwards I was confronted by a crowd of reporters who waited until I emerged one hour later from speaking to a man so detested, so reviled by many that death in prison from cancer would be too good for him.
He was sitting in front of a laptop, across the table in a room set aside of lawyers and their clients. His English was excellent and I remember trying to impress upon him that I was there for the duration, and not just this one visit. I told him that if I thought for one minute he was guilty I would walk out of the room. But he was intent on scrolling through the pages of the trial, pausing now and then to emphasise a point. Perhaps he was listening.
On subsequent visits we could go straight to the point, and deal with "prisoner transfer": to qualify he would have to abandon the appeal which could allow him to clear his name. We also talked more of his family and the growing need, as his health worsened, as it clearly was doing, to be with them. It was then that his composure was momentarily lost; the emotion and tension were tangible. But although his priority was to be with them in his last days, he told me he did not want his name to go down in history as the Lockerbie bomber. He told me, in short, that he did not do it. I told him again that I thought he was innocent.
Let me make one thing clear: I understand the hatred some feel for him, particularly the US relatives of the dead. It is, however, misplaced and it is in order to unravel for them the true story of Lockerbie, as much as to liberate an innocent man, that I and others worked hard for his compassionate release. This would have allowed the appeal process to be exhausted and evidence-led. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission considered there was evidence vital enough for it to consider that there might have been a miscarriage of justice. That evidence, particularly relating to the identification of al-Megrahi linking him directly to the bombing has never and will now never be tested in a Scottish court.
My final meeting with him was on 23 July. He requested that it be private and I have kept my word till now. Apart from discussing his deteriorating health, increasing frailty and his family, we discussed at length his compassionate release. He wanted my advice. I told him I thought he had nothing to lose because if it was rejected he could abandon his appeal and take the prisoner transfer route. I advised him to consult his legal team.
The next day he applied for compassionate release. Stupidly, I thought there was a good chance that after his death at home his appeal could still be pursued, by his family. But, like al-Megrahi, I am a tiny cog in an elaborate mechanism. Last week he abandoned his appeal. His counsel advised the court that he believed that to do so would "assist" with his "applications".
The previous week I had received an email from a whistleblower in the Justice Department telling me that the Libyan officials were being told in no uncertain terms that he must drop his appeal or there would be no compassionate release.
Al-Megrahi was a desperate man, but I believe there are other desperate men and women – in the US Justice Department and in Whitehall, – all with their own reasons for wanting that appeal to be ditched. Now he is home, but he is still, officially, a guilty man.
Those who believe him guilty are crying foul. So are those of us who believe him innocent. And then there are those who are happily sipping their claret, their eyes on a comfortable unblemished retirement. As for any inquiry, that's out there in the long grass. They are people in authority who are relying on Lockerbie fatigue setting in again. It mustn't.
Thursday 24 December 2020
The search for justice goes on and William Barr's actions are unlikely to help
[This is part of the headline over a long article by Kim Sengupta in The Independent. It reads in part:]
With great fanfare, on the anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, the US has announced charges against the supposed bomb maker who blew up Pan Am flight 103, the worst act of terrorism in this country, with 270 lives lost.
One of William Barr’s final acts as Donald Trump’s Attorney General, a deeply controversial tenure, is supposed to fit one of the final pieces of the jigsaw in the hunt for the killers.
There are historic links between the Lockerbie investigation and the current, turbulent chapter of American politics. Barr was also the Attorney General in 1991, in the George W Bush administration, when charges were laid against two Libyans, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, over the bombing. The inquiry was led at the time by Robert Mueller, the head of the Department of Justice’s criminal division.
Mueller, of course, became the Special Counsel who examined if Trump was the Muscovian candidate for the White House. Barr was the Attorney General, in his second term in the post, accused of distorting the findings of Mueller’s report to protect Trump from accusations of obstruction of justice, which he denies.
The charges which have been laid against Abu Agila Mohammad Masud, another Libyan, are intrinsically connected to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who is the only person to have been found guilty by a court of the bombing.
Megrahi is now dead. There are good reasons to hold that the investigation, trial and verdict which brought his conviction were flawed and a miscarriage of justice has taken place. This is a view shared by bereaved families, international jurists, intelligence officers and journalists who had followed the case.
Last month, an appeal hearing began at the High Court in Edinburgh to posthumously clear Megrahi’s name. This was the third appeal in the attempt to prove that the verdict against him was unsound, with his legal team focusing on the veracity of the prosecution evidence at his trial.
Much of the case against Masud, a former Libyan intelligence officer, now charged, comes from an alleged confession he made in jail, where he had ended up after the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Masud, according to the FBI, named Megrahi and Fhimah as co-conspirators, who had together manufactured an explosive device using Semtex during a trip to Malta. Masud has said that he had bought the clothing which had been wrapped around the bomb, hidden in a radio-cassette player, before being placed in a Samsonite suitcase which was put on the flight.
There are two points which are immediately relevant. The same trial which convicted Megrahi had acquitted Fhimah of all charges. And one of the key allegations against Megrahi, which the judges said made them decide on the verdict of guilt, was that it was he who had bought the clothing put around the explosive device.
These contradictions are among many, big and small, which have marked the official narrative presented by the US and UK authorities of what lay behind the downing of the airliner.
I went to Lockerbie on the night of the bombing, attended the trial of the two Libyan defendants, and met Megrahi at his home in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where he had been allowed to return after suffering from cancer. I have followed the twists and turns of the case throughout.
Soon after the downing of the Pan Am flight, American and British security officials began laying the blame on an Iran-Syria axis. The scenario was that Tehran had taken out a contract in revenge for the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner, Iran Air Flight 655, which had been shot down by missiles fired from an American warship, the USS Vincennes, a few months earlier. The theory went that the contract had been taken up by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which specialised in such operations.
But the blame switched to Libya, then very much a pariah state, around the time Iran and Syria joined the US-led coalition against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. Robert Baer, the former American intelligence officer and author, was among those who held that the Iranian sponsored hit was the only plausible explanation for the attack. This was the firm belief held “to a man”, he stated, by his former colleagues in the CIA.
After years of wrangling, Megrahi, the former head of security at Libyan Airlines and allegedly in the Libyan security service, and Fhimah, allegedly a fellow intelligence officer, were finally extradited in 1999. (...)
The two men were charged with joint enterprise and conspiracy. Yet only Megrahi was found guilty. (...)
So, deprived of finding a partner in crime for Megrahi, the prosecutor switched to claiming, and the judges accepting, that he had conspired with himself.
The prosecution evidence was circumstantial; details of the bomb timer on the plane were contradictory; and the testimony of a key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper, extremely shaky under cross-examination. Five years on from the trial, the former Lord Advocate, Lord Fraser of Carmville – who had been responsible for initiating the Lockerbie prosecution – described the witness, Tony Gauci, as “an apple short of a picnic” and “not quite the full shilling”. Gauci was, however, flush in dollars: the Americans paid him for his testimony.
The performance and evidence of a supposedly prime “CIA intelligence asset”, Abdul Majid Giaka, codenamed “Puzzle Piece” who turned up in a Shirley Bassey wig, was widely viewed as risible. It emerged later that important evidence had not been passed on to the defence lawyers. Ulrich Lumpert, an engineer who testified to the validity of a key piece of evidence, admitted later in an affidavit of lying to the court.
It has also emerged that Giaka had been described by his CIA handler, John Holt, in an official report as someone who had a “history of making up stories”.
Holt was denied permission to appear at court. Earlier this month he reiterated in an interview that, like his CIA colleagues, he believes the Libyan connection was a concocted red herring and culpability lay with PFLP (GC). "I would start by asking the current Attorney General, William Barr, why he suddenly switched focus in 1991, when he was also Attorney General, from where clear evidence was leading, toward a much less likely scenario involving Libyans”, he said.
The observer for the UN at the trial, Hans Kochler severely criticised the verdict. Writing later in The Independent, he described a case based on “circumstantial evidence”; the “lack of credibility” of key prosecution witnesses who “had incentives to bear false witness against Megrahi”; the fact that one was paid cash by the Americans; and that “so much key information was withheld from the trial”.
Robert Black, a law professor born in Lockerbie, who played an important role in organising the Camp Zeist proceedings, later became convinced that a great injustice had taken place, as have many other eminent jurists.
Some who were in Lockerbie on that terrible night and dealt with the aftermath also felt the same way. Father Patrick Keegans, the parish priest at the time, joined the “Justice for Megrahi” campaign after meeting the convicted man’s family and has backed appeals to clear his name.
Many members of the bereaved families feel that justice has not been done, among them Jim Swire, who lost his daughter Flora in the bombing and became a spokesman for “UK Families 103”.
When there were objections to the severely ill Megrahi being allowed to return to Tripoli, he pointed out “the scandal around Megrahi is not that a sick man was released, but that he was even convicted in the first place. All I have ever wanted to see is that the people who murdered my daughter are brought to justice.”
After the charging of Masud, Dr Swire said: “I'm all in favour of whatever he's got to tell us being examined in a court, of course I am. The more people who look at the materials we have available the better.”
He wanted to stress: “There are only two things that we seek, really. One is the question of why those lives were not protected in view of all the warnings and the second is: what does our government and the American government really know about who is responsible for murdering them.”
Some bereaved families have criticised the presentation and motivation of the US move. The State Department had sent an invitation for livestreaming of the event.
Reverend John Mosey, who lost his 19-year-old daughter Helga in the bombing, said the “timing and particularly the choice of this specific day, which is special to many of us, to be bizarre, disrespectful, insensitive and extremely ill considered”. He added: “Why exactly, when the Attorney General is about to leave office, has he waited 32 years to bring charges?”
Behind the controversy over who carried out the attack, the political manoeuvres and legal actions, lay the human tragedy of Lockerbie, a scene which is difficult to forget, even after three decades, for many of us who went there. (...)
There is also the memory of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, at his home in Tripoli in 2012. He lay in his bed attached to a drip, on red sheets stained by dark splashes of blood he had coughed up. An oxygen mask covered his skeletal face; his body twitched as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was in the advanced stages of cancer: medicine he desperately needed had been plundered by looters; the doctors who had been treating him had fled. He died a few months later.
The bitter accusations and recriminations over Lockerbie are unlikely to cease. But the search for justice for this terrible act of violence which took so many lives, and caused so much pain and grief, continues to remain elusive among the secrets and lies.
Monday 9 December 2013
Lockerbie: 25 years on - a message from Justice for Megrahi
[What follows is the text of a message sent yesterday to Justice for Megrahi signatory members and supporters by JFM’s secretary, Robert Forrester:]
On 21 December 1988, Europe was subject to its most notorious peacetime assault. In a matter of moments, the Lockerbie atrocity took 270 lives. All our hearts go out in love and comradeship to those the victims left behind as they remember their losses of a quarter of a century ago.
At Kamp van Zeist in 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted for the villainy behind Pan Am 103. In 2009, his second appeal supported by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was dropped against a background of arguably dubious political double dealing which secured his repatriation to Libya and his family due to his terminal medical condition. He died in 2012, without having succeeded in clearing his name.
As one of the country’s most renowned political and legal figures has put it: “There is not a lawyer in Scotland who believes he was guilty.” In 2011, a leading Scottish newspaper’s poll found that 52% of Scots agreed there should be an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing while 34% disagreed and 14% were unsure. A petition for an inquiry has been before the Scottish Parliament for three years now calling for such an inquiry. The petition continues to receive unanimous parliamentarian support. Allegations of criminality against police, forensic and Crown officials have been sidelined by the Scottish police and the Crown Office since August of this year because it is claimed that the allegations conflict with the Crown’s attempts to shore up the indefensible. Would the Crown Office, Police Scotland and the FBI be going on trips to Libya and Malta in their futile and secretive attempts to maintain the charade of implicating further Libyan nationals 25 years after the event were it not for the pressure they have found themselves under due to the overwhelming evidence presented by activists? Doubtful. What seems to be being presented is a cynical blind for public consumption.
Precisely how is justice being served by such intransigence as is being displayed by both the Crown Office and the Scottish Government? What kind of justice is it that produces more victims than it started with? Many good and honest folk firmly believe that justice has not been either done or seen to be done in this tragic case. There has been no completion, nor has there been any finality. A resolution is required. The hearts and minds of the bereaved, the al-Megrahi family and all who invest their trust and faith in our justice system must be satisfied.
In the last few weeks another flood of information further undermines the Crown Office and Scottish Government position. The Foreign Minister of Malta has declared his profound doubts over the conviction. Documentary evidence has been revealed which proves that a key witness in the case against Mr. Megrahi was paid $2 million by the American authorities. This mounting evidence, on top of the evidence the SCCRC relied on for the basis of the second appeal, only serves to prove that our justice system has failed.
A third appeal must be referred. Methodical and persistent pressure can rectify the mistakes of dubious forensics, a bungled investigation and a misguided judgement. Something is seriously wrong in this case. Something seems deeply rotten in a state when public officials attempt to bluster their way out of having to deal with mass murder and a deranged court process to preserve a fantasy of reputation and as a result risk allowing those who may have committed this gross act to escape justice.
As the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy approaches and the legacy of Nelson Mandela unfolds we demand no retribution or vengeance, we do not even seek to attribute blame, we simply ask that those who profess to serve justice do so without fear, favour or prejudice.
Signatory members of Justice for Megrahi
Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).
On 21 December 1988, Europe was subject to its most notorious peacetime assault. In a matter of moments, the Lockerbie atrocity took 270 lives. All our hearts go out in love and comradeship to those the victims left behind as they remember their losses of a quarter of a century ago.
At Kamp van Zeist in 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted for the villainy behind Pan Am 103. In 2009, his second appeal supported by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was dropped against a background of arguably dubious political double dealing which secured his repatriation to Libya and his family due to his terminal medical condition. He died in 2012, without having succeeded in clearing his name.
As one of the country’s most renowned political and legal figures has put it: “There is not a lawyer in Scotland who believes he was guilty.” In 2011, a leading Scottish newspaper’s poll found that 52% of Scots agreed there should be an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing while 34% disagreed and 14% were unsure. A petition for an inquiry has been before the Scottish Parliament for three years now calling for such an inquiry. The petition continues to receive unanimous parliamentarian support. Allegations of criminality against police, forensic and Crown officials have been sidelined by the Scottish police and the Crown Office since August of this year because it is claimed that the allegations conflict with the Crown’s attempts to shore up the indefensible. Would the Crown Office, Police Scotland and the FBI be going on trips to Libya and Malta in their futile and secretive attempts to maintain the charade of implicating further Libyan nationals 25 years after the event were it not for the pressure they have found themselves under due to the overwhelming evidence presented by activists? Doubtful. What seems to be being presented is a cynical blind for public consumption.
Precisely how is justice being served by such intransigence as is being displayed by both the Crown Office and the Scottish Government? What kind of justice is it that produces more victims than it started with? Many good and honest folk firmly believe that justice has not been either done or seen to be done in this tragic case. There has been no completion, nor has there been any finality. A resolution is required. The hearts and minds of the bereaved, the al-Megrahi family and all who invest their trust and faith in our justice system must be satisfied.
In the last few weeks another flood of information further undermines the Crown Office and Scottish Government position. The Foreign Minister of Malta has declared his profound doubts over the conviction. Documentary evidence has been revealed which proves that a key witness in the case against Mr. Megrahi was paid $2 million by the American authorities. This mounting evidence, on top of the evidence the SCCRC relied on for the basis of the second appeal, only serves to prove that our justice system has failed.
A third appeal must be referred. Methodical and persistent pressure can rectify the mistakes of dubious forensics, a bungled investigation and a misguided judgement. Something is seriously wrong in this case. Something seems deeply rotten in a state when public officials attempt to bluster their way out of having to deal with mass murder and a deranged court process to preserve a fantasy of reputation and as a result risk allowing those who may have committed this gross act to escape justice.
As the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy approaches and the legacy of Nelson Mandela unfolds we demand no retribution or vengeance, we do not even seek to attribute blame, we simply ask that those who profess to serve justice do so without fear, favour or prejudice.
Signatory members of Justice for Megrahi
Ms Kate Adie (Former Chief News Correspondent for BBC News).
Mr John Ashton (Author of Scotland’s Shame and Megrahi: You are my Jury and Co- author of Cover Up of Convenience).
Mr Mikhail Basmadjian (Actor, Malta).
Mr David Benson (Actor/author of the play Lockerbie: Unfinished Business).
Mrs Jean Berkley (Mother of Alistair Berkley: victim of Pan Am 103).
Mr Peter Biddulph (Lockerbie tragedy researcher).
Mr Benedict Birnberg (Retired senior partner Birnberg Peirce & Partners).
Professor Robert Black QC (‘Architect’ of the Kamp van Zeist Trial).
Mr Christopher Brookmyre (Novelist).
Mr Paul Bull (Close friend of Bill Cadman: killed on Pan Am 103).
Ms Julia Calvert (Actress and creative director, Malta).
Mr Manuel Cauchi (Actor, Malta).
Professor Noam Chomsky (Human rights, social and political commentator).
Mr Tam Dalyell (UK MP: 1962-2005. Father of the House: 2001-2005).
Christina Dunwoodie (Soprano and opera director).
Mr Ian Ferguson (Co-author of: Cover Up of Convenience).
Dr David Fieldhouse (Police surgeon present at the Pan Am 103 crash site).
Mr Robert Forrester (Justice for Megrahi Committee).
Ms Christine Grahame MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).
Mr Ian Hamilton QC (Advocate, author and former university rector).
Mr Ian Hislop (Editor of Private Eye).
Fr Pat Keegans (Lockerbie parish priest on 21st December 1988).
Ms A L Kennedy (Author).
Dr Morag Kerr (Justice for Megrahi Committee and author of Adequately Explained by Stupidity?).
Mr Andrew Killgore (Former US Ambassador to Qatar).
Mr Adam Larson (Editor and proprietor of The Lockerbie Divide).
Mr Aonghas MacNeacail (Poet and journalist).
Mr Eddie McDaid (Lockerbie commentator).
Mr Rik McHarg (Communications hub coordinator: Lockerbie crash sites).
Mr Iain McKie (Retired Superintendent of Police).
Mr Marcello Mega (Journalist covering the Lockerbie incident).
Ms Heather Mills (Reporter for Private Eye).
Mr Alan Montanaro (Actor and drama school principal, Malta).
Rev’d John F Mosey (Father of Helga Mosey: victim of Pan Am 103).
Ms Denise Mulholland (Actress, Malta).
Mr Len Murray (Retired solicitor).
Mr Alan Paris (Actor and creative director, Malta).
Mr Denis Phipps (Aviation security expert).
Mr John Pilger (Campaigning human rights journalist).
Mr Steven Raeburn (Former editor of The Firm).
Dr Tessa Ransford OBE (Poetry Practitioner and Adviser).
Mr James Robertson (Author).
Mr Mike Ross (Photographer and designer, Malta).
Dr David Stevenson (Retired medical specialist and Lockerbie commentator).
Dr Jim Swire (Father of Flora Swire: victim of Pan Am 103).
Sir Teddy Taylor (UK MP: 1964-2005. Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland).
Mr George Thomson (Private investigator).
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Winner).
Mr Terry Waite CBE (Former envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury and hostage negotiator).
Mr Simon Walker (Close friend of Joyce Dimauro: victim of 103).
Deceased members of Justice for Megrahi
Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie Councillor in 1988).
Deceased members of Justice for Megrahi
Mr Moses Kungu (Lockerbie Councillor in 1988).
Mr Jock Thomson QC (Former police officer and senior prosecutor. Latterly criminal defence advocate).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)